Sandler of “Popular Humor wins weekend with $ 23.4M
August 2nd, 2009
Universal Pictures, Funny People, “trade in adolescents with Sandler humor for adults, a story about a terminally ill comedy star, debuted as the top film of the weekend with $ 23.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Adam Sandler has captured the serious side with the public.
It was a modest weekend for Hollywood, with the giant shadow of last summer “The Dark Knight” hanging over the season successful. Overall revenues for the summer, which had been run before last year and early in May, below the junction of 2008, when “The Dark Knight” is packing theaters for weeks.
“It’s amazing how strong ’The Dark Knight’ was last year. At this point last year, ’The Dark Knight’ has added nearly 400 million dollars to the summer box office. How can you compete with that?” said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.
Revenues in this weekend reached $ 122 million, down 20 percent from a year ago, when “The Dark Knight” led with $ 42.7 million, followed by “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” with $ 40.5 million.
“The Dark Knight” rose to U.S. $ 533 million domestic haul, the biggest hit since “Titanic.”
Since the summer season opened the first week of May, the national income of Hollywood, a total of $ 3.34 million, compared to 0.8 percent from the same summer weekend, according to figures compiled by Hollywood.com.
Given this year’s higher ticket prices, movie attendance this season is 4.4 percent compared to summer 2008.
The next weekend of action of the new history of Paramount Pictures’ GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra “has a great buzz of the fan, and could help set Hollywood on track to break last summer’s record national income of $ 4.2 billion, Dergarabedian said.
For years, movies have been made over $ 6.43 million, the pace to break the record earnings of $ 9.68 million set in 2007.
Coming in second for the weekend was the fantasy adventure of Warner Bros’ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “with $ 17.7 million, raising its domestic total to $ 255.5 million.
Disney’s family action tale “G-Force”, the beginning of the previous weekend movie, slipped to third with $ 17.1 million, lifting total of $ 66.5 million.
This weekend another great new release, 20th Century Fox’s family film “Aliens in the attic,” opened at No. 5 with $ 7.8 million.
“Funny People” debuted well below the most Sandler comedies, which usually start with $ 30 million to $ 40 million opening weekend. Universal is counting on the good word of mouth to keep it alive for a long time at the box office.
The film pairs Sandler as moribund comic with Seth Rogen as his new assistant and a joke writer. Also meets with his Rogen “Knocked Up” director Judd Apatow, a longtime friend and former room Sandler.
Nikki Rocco, Universal’s distribution chief, compared the change in tone for Sandler Tom Cruise’s turn as a man of success “guarantees,” a film that opened in the same range was held on to become $ 100 million affected.
“It’s Adam and Judd even to the point of stretching their careers to something that is a little outside the norm,” said Rocco. “A big movie star in a different type of paper.”
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